my heart is dead, it's way past beating
by Jadism
Summary: Maya hasn't been herself lately. She gets sad sometimes like anyone else, but this time it's different. Trigger Warning: depression, self-harm.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: Hi, I haven't written fanfiction in forever, but I started watching this show about a month ago and I couldn't help myself. Let me know what you think.**

Maya hadn't shown up to get Riley at seven for nearly a month.

While Maya did still sit with her usual group of friends at the lunch table, an eerie silence took over where a snarky remark would have fit in perfectly. Lucas would even set her up for it, but when he looked at Maya expectantly, Maya would glance up from the table, a look of bewilderment gracing her delicate features.

After yet another failed attempt to bring her back from whatever world she was residing in inside her head, Lucas shook his head, giving the blonde girl a worried glance before turning his attention back to Riley.

With everyone else participating in the conversation but her, Maya got up and threw her barely eaten lunch away before walking out of the cafeteria to pace up and down the halls in the few precious minutes she could get alone before she was expected in class.

The lack of funds to buy music left Maya with only a few albums to listen to on her phone - something that normally upset her a little bit - but lately she hadn't felt a desire to discover new music, much less purchase new music. She put on one of her favorite classic rock songs and put her earbuds in. While the music was pleasant to her, what was even more pleasant was the fact that no one would speak to her her when they saw that she had earbuds in.

She'd only let Farkle try so hard to get her to laugh, Lucas to try so hard to get her to tease him, and Riley try so hard to get her to talk about what was wrong before she had to let them down.

Only a song and a half went by before it was time to go to class. With greater difficulty than usual, Maya brought her heavy textbook into the room. It felt pointless as she had no intention of reading it or learning from it. Keeping up appearances wasn't working among her friends, but she had to do it around adults that had more of an ability to step in.

At this point, her friends didn't ask if she was okay anymore. She wasn't sure if people were accepting this personality change as the new Maya, or if they'd just given up hope that she would ever talk. Either way, the question still lingered in the air, and maybe if someone had tried to ask her if she was okay now, she'd tell them. She'd say that she hasn't been okay for a while and it's only getting worse and she doesn't know what to do. She'd say the lines she's rehearsed in her head and wanted to say for so long. However, she'd never say it without the question being posed to her.

She wasn't _that_ desperate for attention.

Maya took her spot in the class next to Riley, who gave her an overly enthusiastic smile. Maya gave a half-smile and turned her head to the front of the class, where she still couldn't find it in herself to pay attention.

* * *

"Do you want to come to my house?" Riley asked, out of breath from rushing to catch up with Maya before she'd left the building. Maya shook her head quickly, looking at the floor. If Riley had a disappointed look, Maya didn't want to know about it. "Okay..." The disappointment was evident in her voice anyway. "Well," Riley started in a higher pitch, "can I at least come with you to make sure you get home safe?"

"Yeah, I mean, I guess that would be alright," Maya said, finally looking up from the ground, Riley looked hopeful, and Maya didn't have the heart to dash that hope.

"Yay!" Riley exclaimed. Maya smiled in spite of herself. She didn't realize how much she'd missed being near the bright, vibrant person standing in front of her.

Riley linked arms with Maya, guiding her out of the school and into the cold air outside. The sky was blue and there were only a few clouds in the sky, so it really didn't feel so bad. Maya felt guilty for how thankful she was for the cool, autumn air. Inside the school it felt so warm that she'd almost absent-mindedly rolled up her long sleeves to her elbows a few times, managing to stop as soon as she got a grip on the fabric near her wrist.

"Do you want to get coffee or something before we get on the subway?" Riley asked. "I'll buy, just... please?"

Maya stared straight ahead. "Well, if you're paying for it," Maya said, a hint of her usual self appearing in her voice, giving Riley yet another ounce of hope that Maya wasn't totally lost to her.

"Yay," Riley said softly. It was more like a breath of relief than her usual enthusiastic delivery, but it was still as Riley as ever.

If only Maya could be as, well, _Maya_ as ever.

Silence was normally uncommon between them. Usually they'd be laughing and joking together all while strutting down the New York City sidewalks, but this time Riley felt more like she was guiding a blind, mute person around the city. If she hadn't had a grip on Maya like she did, the blonde girl wouldn't hesitate to walk across the busy streets with little regard for the safety of the situation.

Riley was thankful when she finally saw the coffee shop they had discovered over the summer; she could relax and not worry about whether or not she could prevent Maya from walking out into traffic. She tried not to show her frustration, but the discomfort over the current situation was evident to Maya whether she liked it or not.

Riley rushed ahead and opened the door for Maya and smiled brightly, "Get whatever your little heart desires. You can get food if you want too, since I know you didn't eat much at lunch today," Riley's tone gained more seriousness as she talked.

"Thank you," Maya whispered politely. "I do eat, you know, I just haven't had much of an appetite lately..."

"It's okay. You don't have to explain."

Maya nodded, walked ahead and ordered a black coffee with cream, which wasn't normally her thing, and Riley knew it, but she didn't push it. Riley ordered Maya's favorite – a white chocolate mocha – and offered to share it, but Maya declined.

Maya was more than ready to leave after receiving her coffee and was holding the door open for Riley before Riley had even put the cardboard holder on her paper to-go cup. "What's the rush?" Riley said.

"I wanna go home," Maya said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Riley bit her lip. She had hoped somehow being around Maya would make her want to talk or at least spend time with her again.

Riley walked out the door Maya was holding open for her, before quickly thanking the cashier once again with a smile.

"How are you so nice and happy all the time?" Maya asked.

"I'm not happy all the time," Riley corrected her, "I'm just happy _most_ of the time... and I'm nice because sometimes people need it. What if what I do is the only nice thing someone experiences all day?"

Maya seemed like she had been stunned into silence. "Thanks for walking me home... and buying me coffee."

"You're welcome. You deserve nice things."

"I really don't."

"It's not up for debate, Maya!"

The seriousness of Riley's tone kept Maya from arguing her case. Instead, Maya took Riley's arm and kept as close to her as possible for the rest of the walk to the subway station.

Even though they stayed quiet on the walk, and even on the subway itself, the mood had lightened somehow. Riley got off at Maya's stop with her and walked with her to the front door of her apartment. Maya didn't offer to let her in.

Riley wrapped her arms around Maya without thinking about it. "I love you," Riley whispered, letting Maya go after a few brief seconds that didn't feel long enough after how little time Riley had been able to spend with Maya lately.

Maya unlocked the door to her apartment and looked back towards Riley. "I love you too. Thank you," she said, before going in and leaving Riley outside.

Riley stared at the closed door for a while, before sighing and turning around to begin her own journey home.


	2. Chapter 2

_no choice but to watch you fall apart_

–

Maya used to spend her weekends with Riley. Maya would sleep over at the Matthews' home and Topanga would make everyone a nice breakfast and Maya would feel like a part of their family. This was special to her, since she didn't have a family of her own until earlier in the year.

The routine was different now. Maya slept in until noon on Saturday, had a granola bar for breakfast, and couldn't find it in her to reply to the "Hey, just checking in," text messages from her friends, much less spend any real quality time with them.

Sometimes she wanted to, but she would always talk herself out of it. She'd bring them down and no one really deserved to have to deal with that.

After all, her mom was at work and hadn't bothered to check on her in the morning, probably because she'd given up too, and Shawn, while he was still in the house that morning, didn't try to force Maya to get up anymore. Maya felt like she'd been written off as going through another "teen phase." To be fair, it wasn't much of a stretch, considering her emotional stability as a general rule, was laughable.

Maya checked her phone. It was almost 1pm, she had over 100 unread emails, 12 unread text messages, and a missed call that she already knew was from Riley since she distinctly remembered the twinge of guilt she felt as she ignored it. She put her phone down again, feeling more overwhelmed than ever before, especially when she looked around at the chaos that was the room she spent most of her free time in.

She'd never been known for being perfectly neat and tidy like Riley, but she'd also never lived in a mess quite like this before. Clothes were everywhere and she wasn't sure which ones were clean and which weren't, and at this point, she couldn't care less. Crumpled up papers from failed drawings filled her trash can, which was overflowing. She knew she hadn't even touched her colored pencils since the end of August, which made the mess completely inexcusable.

How people could create art from pain, Maya would never understand. She wished to express herself somehow, but every time her pencil touched the paper, it would feel wrong, look wrong, _be_ wrong.

The only thing she ever managed to create from this sadness was a different kind of pain, the kind that you have to hide because it scares people, leaves scars, and ends up being anything but beautiful and artistic.

Now if only it were art she could create, maybe she'd actually be able to show her pain to those around her somehow, and maybe she could get someone to understand how she feels with art rather than even attempting to use her words that always seem to be lacking, and maybe someone could help her get better and move past this. Maybe.

* * *

Sunday was a brighter day in New York City. Maya opened up her window when she woke up, letting fresh air and light into her bedroom, and when Riley called yet again, she took a breath and answered just before she got to voicemail. "Hey," Maya said grumpily into the phone.

"Maya?" Riley asked, sounding way too excited for the situation at hand.

"Who else would it be?" Maya asked sarcastically.

"I don't know, just... you answered this time!"

"I _did_. What's up?"

"I just wanted to see if you wanted to come to my house to hang out with me, Lucas, and Farkle today."

Maya did, she really did. In the past, though, what ended up happening was the three of them would talk and Maya would listen until she couldn't focus on anything and felt so empty and tired that she would leave early. It was never anything personal, and never about anything happening, it was just her brain and emotions that she couldn't seem to control.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Riles."

"Why not?"

"Have you been around me lately?"

"Not a lot, but I was with you two days ago."

"And how did that go?" Maya asked.

"You agreed to spend time with me, so I'll say it went well." Maya rolled her eyes. Of _course_ Riley would be looking at the one positive she could glean from that situation rather than the many other negatives that would normally have overshadowed it.

"I've been such a bad friend lately."

"Maya," Riley said in a serious tone. "Stop saying bad things about yourself. You're a good person and you deserve good things out of life and I miss you being happy."

"I miss me being happy too," Maya said, refusing to acknowledge anything else Riley had said, leading to a long and meaningful pause.

"Please hang out with us today. Maybe you'll feel better?"

"I'm sorry Riles," Maya said,

"It's okay," Riley was clearly disappointed.

"Have fun, though," Maya said, attempting to make Riley think of 'fun' rather than 'disappointment.'

"I'd have more fun with you with us."

"I highly doubt that," Maya said. "Thanks for calling."

"I'm going to keep doing it until you start being social again."

"Okay," Maya wanted to add _'Good luck with that,'_ to the end of her sentence but decided against it before it left her mouth. She really didn't want to add to her friend's frustration. She wasn't even sure if she could even call Riley a friend at this point. Friendship should work both ways, and Maya she knew she hadn't been acting like a friend towards Riley or anyone else for that matter.

"Bye," Riley says softly.

"Bye." Maya hangs up, before setting her phone on her bed and crawling back under the covers to cry from the guilt and frustration.

Not even half an hour later Maya is startled by a knock on her bedroom door. "Maya, your friends are here to see you," Shawn said.

Maya quickly glanced around her room. She couldn't let them in here while her room was as messy as it was. "Umm... just tell them I'll be out in a minute," Maya raised her voice to get her words across through the closed door.

She heard nothing in response so she assumed Shawn was doing just as she said. Maya got out of bed quickly and glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. Her hair was a mess and she wasn't wearing makeup, but she wasn't going to put that much effort into her appearance on a Sunday night where she was seeing only a few people and not leaving her house. She was wearing black leggings and a band tee. She pulled on a hoodie to cover up her arms before deciding that was all of the effort she was going to put into her outfit before heading out of her room and into the kitchen, where her friends were occupying the chairs at the dinner table.

Shawn was the first one to speak up. "I'm going to go visit your mom at work, I'll be back later..." Maya nodded. She knew that wasn't really his plan, but he just wanted her and her friends to have the apartment to themselves.

Everyone stayed quiet as Shawn put on his jacket and grabbed his set of house keys before leaving the apartment and shutting the door. Maya waited by the door for a few seconds to make sure he wasn't going to come back in for a forgotten item or something, only moving closer to where her friends were when she was certain he was gone. "Riley," Maya said, sporting her signature smile of death, "didn't I tell you that I wasn't going to hang out with you tonight?"

"You told me you wouldn't come over to my house to hang out with us," Riley motioned to the walls around her, "This is your place."

"Riley... you know what I meant."

"I'm sorry, if you want us to leave we can, I was just-"

"No," Maya said gently as soon as she saw Riley start to get up from her seat. "Stay. It's fine."

The tone it was said in proved that it was not fine, but Riley sat back in the chair anyway. Maya came over and sat in the empty chair across from Lucas, who gave her a look of reassurance.

Farkle reached over and touched Maya's arm. "Don't be mad at Riley, this was my idea."

"I'm not mad, I'm just... I don't know."

Riley gave Maya a look of pity before reaching down to get something off the floor. "I brought The Friends Game," she says happily, holding up the box for Maya to see.

Maya rolled her eyes and giggled, "Of _course_ you did, Riley."

The tension in the room eases with the sound of Maya's laugh reappearing for what seemed like the first time in forever. Whether or not it would be a frequent sound in their lives remained to be seen, but for now, they had Maya, at least for a night, or an hour, or however long the light would stay in her eyes.

"Do you want to be on my team?" Riley asked Maya. Maya playfully pondered it before nodding.

"I'd like that."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: I got a lot of hits but no reviews on the last chapter. Are you guys still with me? Is there anything I can improve on? Let me know.**

Needless to say, Riley and Maya lost The Friends Game. By a lot.

Maya was usually all about competition; that part of her seemed all but gone now. Even Farkle seemed less concerned with winning than he usually was. After all, winning wasn't winning unless the other people were at their best too.

Sure, the game was a nice distraction, but Maya still wasn't Maya. "I think that was the worst round of The Friends Game I've ever played," Maya said in a joking manner that was easy to see through.

"Except for that one time-" Maya cut Farkle off by throwing her and Riley's game piece at his forehead. "I should have seen that coming."

"You really should have," Lucas said.

Maya looked at her phone. "My mom gets off work soon," she said with a somber tone. "You should probably go... but thanks for coming. I had a good time."

The other three friends glanced at each other as if Maya couldn't see them; Lucas was the first to get up. "Thank you for playing," he said, awkwardly bending down to hug her so she didn't have to get up.

"Yeah, thanks for letting us hang out for a bit," Farkle said, getting up to give Maya a hug in a similar manner to Lucas.

Riley really didn't want to leave. Maya was so clearly not okay. While she didn't seem quite as bad as she was two days ago, she also didn't seem quite as good as she was an hour ago and Riley didn't know what to make of that. Lucas and Farkle saw the situation and walked to the door to give the two girls some semblance of privacy.

Maya stared at the middle of the kitchen table as Riley took a breath and started putting the game pieces back into the box.

"I'm sorry for kicking you out," Maya said emotionlessly.

"It's okay," Riley sighed. "After all, your mom gets off work soon." It wasn't a lie, exactly, but Riley did know that Katy and Shawn didn't have an issue with Maya having friends over so it also wasn't like they _had_ to leave.

Maya nodded and didn't say anything more.

"I love you," Riley said softly.

Maya looked at her and gave her a small smile. "Love you too." If Maya hadn't known what was going on in her own head, she probably wouldn't have believed herself. If she really loved Riley or Lucas or Farkle or her mom or Shawn wouldn't she act like it? Wouldn't she talk to them? Wouldn't she let them in instead of trying to shove them out?

Riley reached out and took Maya's hand and neither of them spoke for a little bit. There was nothing left to say, really.

Neither one moved until Lucas took a few steps closer to the pair of them and gave Riley a look to indicate it was probably time to leave. Riley felt bad leaving Maya there. She looked helpless and alone, like someone needed to protect her and she wanted to be the one to do it.

"Goodnight Maya," Riley said, before giving her a hug in the same awkward way that her two friends before her had. Riley picked The Friends Game off of the table and walked out with the two boys, but not before looking back at Maya one more time. She was still there, she was safe, and that had to be enough and she had to be okay with leaving her to deal with whatever she was going through. _Alone_. Riley had started to give up hope that Maya would ever talk about what was going on.

Even the people with the most hope in their hearts have to survive in a world where hope and good intentions rarely make a difference.

* * *

Maya doesn't pick Riley up at seven anymore. Lucas and Farkle do. They couldn't fix Maya so the least they could do was keep Riley from shattering completely.

The new routine is makeshift and it doesn't come close to the feeling Riley got when she had Maya by her side. With Maya she felt like she could take on the world. Lucas and Farkle would never make her feel quite as invincible, but they made her feel less alone in this world that was too big and powerful for her to face alone.

It doesn't make up for the Maya-shaped hole in Riley's heart. But routines change, people change, and somehow you have to figure out how to deal with it.

So when Maya walks into history class first thing in the morning and takes a seat without being looked at or acknowledged by her friends, she has to deal with that too.

Riley's talking and laughing with some other girl. Her name was Jade if Maya remembered correctly. She was one of the classmates of theirs that never talked, but Maya figured if she wasn't going to talk, it only made sense that someone else would take her place.

She wasn't happy about it, but it made sense.

Riley would gain a new best friend and Maya would fade into oblivion and somehow the world would be right again.

The world had given Maya too many chances as it was. It was time for things to go wrong for her and things to start looking up for Riley.

At least that's what made sense inside the dark and dreary world in Maya's head.

* * *

Art class was the only class that Maya liked. Emphasis on _liked._ Art wasn't something she could concentrate on anymore, if the crumpled up drawings in the trash can in her room meant anything. She got to sit right beside Riley, which added some brightness to her day. The brightness that was passed along to her meant she had to shed some of her darkness, and the darkness ended up in Riley. Riley dealt with it by painting black cats with red eyes, and Maya would try to roll her eyes, but the subtle change of color was more than just a subtle change of color and she knew it.

"The assignment was to draw trees..." Maya reminded Riley with a smirk.

"There is a tree! And besides, I'm being a true artist and sharing my feelings." Riley glanced over at Maya's canvas. "You did the assignment," Riley said.

Maya nodded. "You like it?"

"Technically, it's really good but... you did the assignment."

"Yeah, that's kind of the point. Mr. Jackson likes it when I do the assignment," Maya said sarcastically.

"Yeah, but... you _did_ the assignment. There's no special Maya flair to it, there's no monster hidden in the trees or a cat that only appears when you step back or abstract designs on the trees... it's just... trees."

Maya shrugged. "I can add a monster," she mumbled. She could paint anything she was told to paint just fine, but when it came to any amount of creativity, her brain failed her. A monster was easy, she'd been dealing with one of her own.

Maya paints the shape of a human in white, then she takes a cue from Riley and paints the red eyes of what she was going to turn into a monster. She absent-mindedly rolled up her sleeves before starting to paint the monster itself.

She stays focused and paints the monster grabbing the silhouette of a person and fixes the trees up, so it's covering the scene a little bit.

"Maya," Riley says firmly.

"Better?" Maya asked, her eyes still focused on what she's created.

"No, Maya..." Riley trailed off again. Maya gave Riley a look of confusion and then saw that the girl's eyes weren't even on her canvas at all, but her arm.

Maya dropped her paintbrush and pulled her sleeves down just as Mr. Jackson made his way over to the girls. He looked at Riley's painting first while Maya tried to catch her breath.

"I see there's a tree _in_ it..." He pointed to the spot on the canvas where Riley had, in fact, painted a tree next to the black cat with red eyes. Riley nodded, smiling like there was nothing wrong. Maya meekly glanced at Mr. Jackson, her heart pounding so hard that it was actually hurting her.

"You okay Maya?" Mr. Jackson asked, "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah, well..." She motioned to her painting as if that somehow would explain her expression and demeanor.

"This is amazing," Mr. Jackson said, after giving himself a few seconds to take it in.

"Really?" Maya asked, hopefully.

"Yes. It's got Maya Hunter written all over it. It's been a while since I've seen her work," he said. Maya looked down as he went to go look at the other students' art.

She noticed her paintbrush had fallen onto the floor and that some of the dark paint had splattered onto her ripped jeans. She rubbed the spot it left before quickly realizing it wasn't worth the effort of trying to get it off. So she picked up her paintbrush and put it in the mason jar of water to rinse the color off of it, all while she tried to ignore the fact that Riley's eyes were locked on her.

Maya finished cleaning up quickly, grabbed her backpack, and tried to slip out of the room the second the bell dismissed them, but Riley grabbed her hand before that could happen.

"Maya..."

"What?" Maya tried to ask innocently, but her voice ended up being shaky, and she was sure that Riley could feel the trembling in her hands.

"You _know_ what."

Maya feigned confusion and jerked her hand away from Riley. "Clearly, I don't," she said before walking out of the room.

Riley followed after her and stopped her before just before she left the building, much like she did on Friday.

"Can I at least walk you home?" Riley asked. It was only then that Maya noticed tears in Riley's eyes. She'd looked so stoic earlier, if not angry.

"That depends."

"Depends on what?"

"Do we have to talk?"

"You know we have to, Maya."

"Then no."

Maya wasn't sure what was worse, not talking to Riley about this and worrying her, or talking to her and running the chance of making it worse than it already was.

And if Riley was left alone with this information, she'd probably tell someone so she didn't have to carry it alone. Or she'd tell an adult and think she was helping Maya.

Maya thought this over harder. If she wanted to keep her secret, she at least needed to come up with a reason that Riley keeping her mouth shut was in the best interest of everyone involved. Maya felt nothing but anger at herself for her stupid mistake of forgetting what lay beneath her sleeves at an inopportune time.

Maya turned around to look at the dejected-looking Riley. "Fine. But only if you buy me coffee," Maya said, leaving all traces of emotion or feeling out of her voice.

This would be the part where Riley would say "Yay!" or hug Maya but neither of those things happened.

Riley put her arm around Maya, and with tear-filled eyes, she uttered but one word: "Okay."


End file.
